11/21/05  Hunt Serf defends her Master!

As you may have noticed, there is this statement on the home page of DallasArena.com:

		At least one serf on the Hunt Oil plantation does not take kindly to a mere citizen challenging the wants of her master, Ray Hunt.  It confuses them when a commoner asserts the concept of equality.  How can they stay in their subservient role if some minor political gadfly has the nerve to criticize a Billionaire Son of a Bigamist?			11/21  Kris Baugh: Sharon, Who cares what Brown-Nose Powell says?  You rock!

Here's an e-mail I got from a Martha Powell who doesn't appreciate DallasArena.com's humor or mission and my right to speak my mind in particular (my not being wealthy and all):

Wasn't that sweet?  Since she worked so hard on her e-mail and even though I didn't have a clue at the time who she might be, it seemed appropriate for me to respond:

I shared my exchange between the then unknown Martha Powell with some buddies, and got the following responses:

I have to admit the "brainopause" was funny to me, too.  So I laughed.  Guess two great minds think alike because Chip Northroup sent this one:

Isn't that great?  I love "essential Sharon" and "pure Sharon".  Wonder what Martha Powell thinks of that?  After those two e-mails, I was still wondering (but not too much) about who the eloquent Martha Powell might be.  Another buddy furnished the missing piece to the puzzle.

That answered my question, but I bet it only confuses you.  Let me fill in the blanks, so you get the joke.

Last month, Weeping William and Flip Flop Oakley put Ray Hunt's wants above the city's needs and way above Dallas homeowners and granted him a $6.3 million tax abatement AFTER THEY VOTED TO RAISE YOUR PROPERTY TAXES.  Before and after the big giveaway that 80% of the council were happy to approve, I wrote some scathing commentaries on DallasArena.com, as I am wont to do when something riles me up.  Not much riles me up more than tax abatements for billionaires, unless it's taking people's property for billionaires.

Before the vote, I got three voice mails from a "Ms. Powell".  She could have said "Martha Powell", but I only noted the last name.  She said she was trying to reach Sharon Boyd on behalf of "her old, good friend Jean Johnson ... Jean Johnson Phillips ... A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r Jean Johnson Phillips" in that special tone  servants of the privileged use when speaking to peons to make sure we know we are being honored.  She asked me to return the call.  I had heard Jean was hired by Hunt to replace Jim Oberwetter, who President Bush has made the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.  It's been years (decades?) since I've seen or talked with Jean Johnson.  Although we were friendly, I very much doubt she considers me a "good friend", nor I her.

Curiosity got the better of me.  I called the next day and reached Ms. Powell.  She said, "let me get the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r ".  Instead, she came back and said "the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r  would like to know" if I would be available the next morning at 11 for an in-person or telephone conference.  I agreed to be in the office by 11 a.m. and available for a telephone conference, but not an in-person conference.  I was in my office waiting breathlessly for our telephone conference at the appropriate time as promised, but I never heard from Ms. Powell again nor the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r .

I assume the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r  would ask me to stop saying bad things about her boss, and I planned to agree to do just that as soon as he stopped coercing weak and crooked politicians to let him skip out on $6.3 million that he would rightfully owe the city in property taxes on his new building when it is completed.

Back to Ms. Powell's most recent communication with your "essential and pure Sharon".

Let's recall that infamous day when Weeping William and Flip Flop Oakley lost their composure because Mayor Miller had the audacity to itemize how much money and potential development we have already lost on previous bad deals with Ray Hunt.  Mayor Miller was not supposed to shine the light on another Ray Hunt backroom deal.  As I told the e-mailing Ms. Powell (before I knew she the Ambassador's secretary), if you get an abatement that waives a portion (as in $6.3 million) of the taxes that normally would be assessed for your property, you can give it back.  Each year of the shady deal, Ray Hunt could write a check to a police fund he should establish for new police hires and widows and orphans of murdered police officers in the amount of the property taxes he did not pay that year.

Ms. Powell's menopause question is very interesting.  Considering the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r  and I are about the same age, you have to wonder if she is transferring?  Although I haven't talked to her in years, Jean Johnson was always a very sweet person.  I doubt she approved her secretary's e-mail to me.  I'll just leave that for you to ponder.

Ms. Powell's sweet note reminded me of something that happened in the 80's, around when I was President of the Downtown Republican Women's Club.  A woman asked me to contact the membership and offer them the "opportunity" to wait tables (for free) at a fundraiser Ray Hunt was having for some politician.  I refused.
The woman requesting our free service said I should feel "honored" to be invited to be a servant at a Ray Hunt function.  I told her I am a Republican because I believe in the equality of all citizens, regardless of their accumulation of wealth.  Ray Hunt could afford to hire people to wait on his guests and should do so.  He's still a cheapskate looking for a free ride off the back of the peasant class.

Before that Hunt experience, I worked in a firm owned by an ultra rich and still very prominent Democrat.  My experience in that job probably caused me to get more active politically as a Republican because I witnessed his view of the natural order of man -- an elite class (him and his) who are served by the working class (me and mine).  While he and his family need to live in luxury and be surrounded by outrageous art objects, we lesser mortals should be satisfied with the basics and be happy to support his lifestyle.

A belief in master/serf order for society is not confined to the big shots of either party.  Many people see themselves less than equal to another citizen who happens to have more money.  In Ray Hunt's case and my former employer, both were born to money and went on to make even more.  In Hunt's case, he was born before his daddy married his momma because his daddy was already married to two other women.

I don't begrudge either of them their money or their art.  I do begrudge them using their money and power to get City Hall to cut special deals for them that wind up using Dallas taxpayers money and worse diverting limited property tax revenue from the needs of the entire populous.

Ms. Powell is right that Hunt will pay a lot more taxes with or without the $6.3 million tax abatement than I will pay in 100 lifetimes.  So what?  His building will require 100 lifetimes more in city services than my little house in Northwest Dallas will cost the city.  The streets around Hunt's new building will get much more attention than the streets in my neighborhood.  The park over Woodall Rodgers that Hunt wants as an amenity for his new building will far exceed the property taxes he will pay on the building.  It's a wash!

None of that matters!  What does matter is that a billionaire got most of the city council to grant him a tax abatement that he does not need.  That $6.3 million won't make a dent in Hunt's revenue, but it's a huge hit on our city budget.  If City Manager Mary Suhm came up with a budget that was $6.3 million short, she would be in big trouble.

Now, knowing which Martha Powell took the trouble to e-mail me, I am more convinced that most of the nasty letters to the editor in The Dallas Managed News  were from Hunt employees. Several mentioned Mayor Miller's temper tantrum at the Hunt tax abatement briefing.  None of them actually saw the briefing or they were lying.  The Mayor kept her cool.  It was Flip Flop Oakley and Weeping William who lost their composure. 

Powell's serf thinking is the same mentality that justifies taking the homes of those modest income people in Arlington to build a play pen for Billionaire Grandpa Jones.  How could Arlington voters do that to their neighbors?  All they had to do was look at the Ball Park or Texas Stadium to see they will never get the promised development from the Jerryville stadium.  It's serf thinking.  A rich man knows more than regular folk, even if he's a cracker from Arkansas.

There are people who truly believe the rich are better than those of us of lesser means.  Don't think only other rich people feel that way.  Lots of middle to modest income people see the wealthy as a ruling class, and are perfectly happy to be subservient to wealth.

Ask yourself:  Are you content to be a part of the serf class in Hunt's world of a stratified society? 

That Son of a Bigamist Ray Hunt and any other rich man or woman can spend their money any way they want.  I would march in the street to protect their right to use their assets as they see fit.

However, I vehemently object that I can't spend my money any way I want because the city and school district and county and everybody else take a bigger hunk of my disposable income in property taxes because politicians keep giving tax abatements to billionaires.  People like me must make up the difference.

I don't know if the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r's Ms. Powell owns a house in Dallas or even lives in Dallas.  If she wants to designate a portion of her property taxes to make up for the Ray Hunt tax abatement, more power to her.  I don't!

I will never forgive the likes of Weeping William, Flip Flop Oakley, Shakedown Chaney, Sandra Dee Griffith, Brain-Dead T-Reese or the FBI's Favorite Target Hill for voting to raise my property taxes and then voting to give a Billionaire a $6.3 million tax abatement.  If that is "hate speech" as Ms. Powell calls my comments, I can live with that.

It bothers me that people like the A-m-b-a-s-s-a-d-o-r's Ms. Powell are happy to live in a serf/master world where there are different rules depending on your net worth.

sb (essential and pure Sharon)